


Cracks in the wall

by orphan_account



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Biblical Themes (Abrahamic Religions), Gen, Sdom va'Amora | Sodom and Gomorrah (Abrahamic Religions)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-25 19:56:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20917709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Aziraphale after Sodom and Gomorrah





	Cracks in the wall

It was evening, and smoke rose to mingle with the orange sunset, starkly corrupting the weak light. Aziraphale noticed this, and he noticed the cracks in the plaster wall. He saw their history – what had made them, whose eyes had traced them in boredom and despair and drunken isolation. He saw also the future of the eating house in which he sat. It would continue through the family, one generation much like another. The cracks would grow, and the descendants of the mice would be as familiar with them as would the descendants of the men. Aziraphale knew this, yet did not focus on it. All at once and for eternity he saw the history and future of those around him. He would see a child and their old age would flash through him; and their demise. Such was the stock of the world. He lifted the drinking cup to his mouth, felt the wine slide in. Then he repeated the motion. The owner of the eating house knew him, would fill his cup. Refill it. 

Now the sun had set, yet still the smoke hovered, obscuring the emerging stars. Aziraphale knew each of these by name, had been secondary in their creation. He had felt the pull of supernovas as archangels set them in their orbits and had revelled in the newly unleashed heat. It had been startling. It had been wonderful.

It had been appallingly cruel. This morning Sodom and Gomorrah had existed. This evening, they did not. Aziraphale had known these towns intimately, had struggled to bring hope to those crushed by poverty and disease. The mothers, scrambling to survive, side by side with their children begging on the streets while merchants ground their labourer fathers into the mud. The stink of the shacks had filled his senses time and again, a hundred times, as he had given food to gaunt faces with enormous eyes, as he had heard tell-tale noises of banqueting and feasting in the hilltop palace. All of these he had known, intimately, and he had been present at their destruction.

Once more he lifted the wine cup to his mouth, and felt the wine slide in. A mother sang a lullaby to an unceasingly crying baby. The barking of dogs echoed through the night. Most other patrons had left, leaving Aziraphale with an ever-yawning bartender, and another man who slouched against the wall, plaster drifting onto his forehead. A crack grew infinitesimally larger. Aziraphale actively tried to suppress his vision of its history, yet could not. He sighed. His wine cup showed signs of being empty, and although he tried to stop creating more, he could not.

His part in today had not been as enthusiastically played as it might have been; there were no swords involved today, no images of paltry human inventions through which divine beings played at controlling their power – no, today they used Heaven’s most fearsome and terrible weapon. A hundred hundred of them, blazing with glory and light. The smell of sin, of miserable conditions – humanity – wafted in the air alongside them, were separated by piercing flight. Tatters of it drifted back to the town below which was suspended in the moment of its liquidation; upturned faces, scorched by a lifetime of heat, lifted. Gaped. They saw beings in the sky and were afraid. The weapons of Heaven shifted as one mass, careless of the whites of the eyes in the heads of the poor, and the rich. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Naked they were born, and together they died. The angels, God’s fearsome and most terrible weapons, blinked, and in a microsecond, they tore open: revealing Light and Purity and Righteousness and Sanctity – but above all, a blinding Light. The shockwaves carried in a moment, lifting dust and settling it down gently onto the newly empty houses. In the very moment of their unveiling themselves, the angels blinked again. They took form once more. Only one glance did they spare for the towns below: twins in Sin and now twins in emptiness. Seeing the task accomplished, they turned as one, then existed in Heaven. Only one angel had not looked at the towns, prostate in their violation. No - this angel had turned to look, instead, at Aziraphale. Gabriel looked into his eyes, and Aziraphale saw that Gabriel perceived.

He leaned on the stool to scratch his foot, causing the wood to creak in protest. The drunk in the corner muffled a protest, too used to being kicked by those who deemed him insignificant. While cleaning white specks from his feet Aziraphale saw red drops on his hand. His wine cup had overflowed.

Afterwards he had walked through the town. Every house he went into, every temple he visited, was empty. Nobody left – not the men, or the children, the women, or the slaves, the dogs, goats, or the pigs. Every living thing, damned. The salt which carpeted the floor crunched when he put his weight on it.

He sat looking into his wine cup. “A thousand ships sailing the wine-dark sea”, Homer had said. Would say. A thousand stories floated through his mind, staggering to avoid the jagged objects and fettered thoughts. His reflection looked back at him, gazing though the mist which swirled between them. He saw blond hair surrounding a creased round face, and white robes. The blue eyes, he thought, looked sad, but otherwise the expression was perfectly normal – slightly distanced, yet placid. He did not tell himself that it did not reflect his mind.

Anger did not belong to an angel.

Righteousness did belong to an angel. Holy and pure - burning with the majesty of Heaven! Angels were to smite the enemies of Heaven. Creatures of war did not want to hide, to sob, to drown themselves - and forget it all.

He swallowed. The wine brought a haziness, but did nothing to suppress his self-loathing. Soft. Weak. Gabriel had seen, perceived. He had noted.

Aziraphale did not look directly upwards. Instead, he looked out into the night.


End file.
